Teaching on the water requires clarity, confidence, and intention. The Art of Teaching on the Water helps sailing and powerboating instructors turn experience into effective instruction.
American Sailing and American Boating present their first ever teaching manual for instructors!
The Art of Teaching on the Water focuses on teaching methods that span all of our curriculum. While the book does not cover the specifics of any sailing or boating course, it readies the instructor to know how to teach each course well.
We cover the teaching cycle, understanding adult learners, examining teaching methods beyond lecture, strategies for helping struggling learners, and practical hands-on tools to make learning stick. This book will be used in future Instructor Qualification Clinics and can be used as a professional development tool for existing instructors.
Jenny Wight, author and Director of Educational Development for American Sailing, condenses her 20 years of working with various learners, both as a school teacher and as a captain instructor, to fast-track you with tools to vastly improve your teaching. Let’s bring research-driven education skills into the boating education world!
Watch the video interview with Jenny here: https://youtu.be/Hnrb8ZrO0H8
About The Book
Teaching on the water requires clarity, confidence, and intention. The Art of Teaching on the Water helps sailing and powerboating instructors turn experience into effective instruction.
Focused on adult learning, this book offers practical guidance on lesson planning, teaching methods, communication, feedback, and professionalism in dynamic on-the-water environments. The goal is simple: calmer teaching, stronger learning, and students who leave the boat feeling capable and confident.
Here are a few topics we'll dive into:
- Designing course lessons
- Understanding the teaching cycle
- The whiteboard: a powerful teaching tool
- Supporting challenging students with calm, effective strategies
- Expanding your teaching methods for deeper learning
- Practical, hands-on tools that make learning stick
Who is this book for?
- New instructors taking an IQC
- Existing Instructors who want fresh insights
- Sailors curious about becoming instructors
- Anyone interested in perfecting their teaching methods (sailing, or otherwise!)
Related Products
-
-
-
-
ASA Textbook Starter Bundle
$91.88$114.85
Reviews
-
Teaching is Art and Science. This book shows us how.
I became an ASA instructor in 2009 because I wanted to learn how to teach my non-sailing friends how to help me sail boats in foreign destinations. I quickly learned that an IQC does not teach an instructor candidate how to teach. IQC's mostly just test a sailor's ability to sail better than most, and only occasionally do the best schools see if an instructor candidate actually can explain the task or drill. So if you want to become a better sailor, become an AS Instructor. And if you want to be a better instructor, then read this book. It is very honest, well thought out,, organized and full of great teaching advice and skills. Thank You American Sailing - I wish this book was available when I first embarked on the path to becoming an instructor. I'd have been well ahead.
-
The Art of Teaching on the Water
For the most part, this is a good text for a new instructor. There is a lot of good information. An instructor with prior teaching experience, particularly with adult learners, will probably have been exposed to most of the information already. Even so, it is a good review and there are a few nuggets that I had not considered in the past - for example, the idea of always using the same colors for whiteboard drawings. However, I did have two negative (and related) comments. The first is that this book is very short of actual information. At 77 pages, it only really has about 25 pages worth of actual content. The rest is chapter opening and closing pages, review information, and front and end stuff. The second is that there are a lot of pictures, mostly of schools doing classes. Very few of these pictures actually demonstrate techniques. They tend to be "pretty" pictures that almost feel like advertising for the school in the captions.